Sporting Notes

american handguns
Four of the more interesting American handguns, clockwise from upper left: Colt 1851 Navy, Colt single-action .45, Colt Officer’s ACP, and the Smith & Wesson Model 27. Collectively, based on relevant patent dates, they total about 550 years old! What’s not to like?

Piscatorial Musings and the Joy of Handguns

by Terry Wieland It’s almost 30 years now since Gray’s late and sorely lamented editor-in-chief,…

For the Love of Levers

If there is a great American rifle, it is undoubtedly the lever gun. With one…
terry wieland
In his imagination, Wieland is using an old E.M. Reilly double (originally a .577 Snider, now a 20-bore) to ward off bandits in the Khyber Pass — something the gun itself may well have done for real.

The Word Is Gun. Rhymes With Fun.

The term “playing with guns” has rather fallen into disrepute of late, with politically correct…
pumpgun
The author with his lone Model 12, a 16 gauge from 1934. It still shucks them smoothly, and whacks them hard.

In Praise of Pumpguns

My old friend Clare was a great fan of Winchester, and so for more than…
shotgun
The raw material — an unbelievable Armenian walnut blank, cut many years ago, and a Dakota No. 10 action.

Wood Just Too Beautiful

The story begins in 2004, when I was possessed by a desire for a trim,…
bob hayley
Bob Hayley in his workshop, in 2008, with some of his old loading tools and a few (!) of his vast collection of loading dies. I never asked him a question about old guns that he could not answer.

Not an Obituary

Readers of Gray’s over the past dozen years will be familiar with the name Bob…
wingshooting
Jeff Ogle giving Mike (left) and Burt the obligatory safety lecture before we start.

Wingshooting 101

’Tis a sad fact, but these days very few of us grow up with fathers…
shotgun

Gentlemen, Meet Lucile…

Lucile first crossed my path in 2018. One could wax metaphoric and pretend Lucile was…
ftw ranch shooting

Courting Danger

by Terry Wieland The FTW Ranch, in the Texas hill country west of Kerrville, is…
Terry Wieland
Wieland on a mountaintop, trying out a Springfield Arms Waypoint 2020. He is not over-dressed.

Not Quite a Blue Norther, But …

by Terry Wieland In his novel, The Searchers, Texas native Alan Le May describes what…
GERBER MAGNUM HUNTER
Gerber Magnum Hunter — one of the great folding knives from the 1980s.

The Kindness of Strangers

Back in 1985, I went into my favorite gunshop in downtown Toronto — there were…

FOLK ART — OR NOT

Fifteen years ago, I was offered the chance to buy an ancient Winchester 1886 for…